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12/12/2010 @ 7:00AM18,756 views

Mark Madoff Suicide: Bullied To Death?

Mark Madoff, the eldest son of reviled financier Bernard Madoff, hanged himself by a dog leash on Saturday, the two year anniversary of his father’s arrest in a Ponzi scheme that swindled multibillions out of thousands. It was the largest investment fraud in U.S. history.

Madoff was found by his father-in-law hanging from a ceiling pipe in the living room of his SoHo loft. His 2-year-old son, Nick, slept unharmed in a nearby bedroom, while his wife, Stephanie, was at Disney World in Florida with their 4-year-old daughter. Stephanie asked her step-father to go to the apartment after receiving an alarming early morning e-mail from Madoff asking for someone to check on their son.

“I love you,” the e-mail said, “…send someone to take care of Nick,” reports ABC News. In a separate email to his lawyer Martin Flumenbaum, Madoff wrote, “No one wants to hear the truth take care of my family.”

What happened? Was it overpowering guilt or overpowering bullying from his father’s investors, federal prosecutors, trustee Irving Picard, the media and the public?

Listen to Madoff’s lawyer: “This is a terrible and unnecessary tragedy,” said Flumenbaum in a written statement. “Mark was an innocent victim of his father’s monstrous crime who succumbed to two years of unrelenting pressure from false accusations and innuendo.” [my bold]

Mark Madoff, along with his brother, Andrew, was never criminally charged, said he never knew of his father’s crimes, was not facing imminent arrest and hadn’t spoken to investigators in over a year. The brothers were, however, still under investigation and named in multiple lawsuits accusing them of negligence, breach of fiduciary duty and profiting from the scheme to the tune of millions.

Mark and Andrew were employees of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC, though they worked in the trading section,allegedly separate from the fraudulent investment management and advisory divisions. They maintained they did not know about their father’s actions and were the ones who went to the authorities on December 10, 2008, with the news that their father had confessed his crimes, quoting him as describing it as “one big lie.”

Covering the final, emotional hearing in Federal Judge Denny Chin’s courtroom in downtown Manhattan in March 2009, I sat two rows behind Bernie–later sentenced to 150 years in prison–when he publicly apologized: “I have left a legacy of shame, as some of my victims have pointed out, to my family and my grandchildren. This is something I will live in for the rest of my life. I’m sorry.”

Prescient, that. Socially-shunned wife Ruth bunks with relatives in Florida and drives a 14-year-old clunker, according to the New York Post. And now Mark, alleged bullying victim.

This brings to mind:

Seth Walsh, a California 13-year-old who hanged himself from a tree in his backyard this September after years of being bullied.

Phoebe Prince, 15, who hanged herself last January, a victim of taunting through texting and Facebook by a group of fellow Massachusetts high school girls.

Carl Joseph Walker-Hoover, an 11-year-old found by his mother hanging by an extension cord in 2009 after he had endured incessant taunting at school.

Megan Meier, a 13-year-old from Missouri who committed suicide in 2006 by hanging herself because of unrelenting cyber-bullying.

Hold up…Of course I get it: These children were tragically and fatally teased by their peers–or, in the case of Meier, a mother–while Madoff, 46, was facing legal prosecution and possible bankrupting fines and jail time, not to mention a presumably guilty conscience on some levels.

The common thread I’m suggesting here is a shared experience of unrelenting pressure from accusations and innuendo. One wonders what this man with young children, a wife and family went through to drive him to suicide. Just calling him “Madoff” may have been enough.

My impression is that Madoff could have moved on, even without changing his name, by (a) giving back the dirty money in his bank accounts; and (b) giving back to the greater good through charitable donations and community service. Apparently, he lost the will. Unless, of course, it’s all in his last will and testament.

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>>… Unless, of course, that was his last will and testament. What’s your take? I think Madoff’s story is of Biblical proportion even though only money was involved. Eventually, people will get their principal back through Claw Back and write-offs of virtual gains as theft losses allowed by the IRS. Biblical proportion? At the time Madoff’s collapsed pyramid made the news, Israel was bombing Gaza. Months after, the United Nations reported that 1,100 people in Gaza were killed, about 12,000 building structures were destroyed during Israel’s attack. The list of household names in Madoff’s collapsed pyramid was also about 12,000 lines long. I think the Father might have been God-sent; His Son has just died for people’s sin.

Well, I guess he was not strong enough to handle it. I do not believe that you let people “bully you to death”–Surely, he knew this was going to happen when he and his brother went to the press with their Father’s mis-deed. At that time, he should have turned to his faith and stayed here on earth to take care of those children. How selfish! The entire family is cursed and now that Son, who was left, will be cursed because of his selfish act. We will read about this child 20 years or less from now if he survives this entire family nightmare.

“mark Madoff Suicide or Fake Out? Did he have the guts to kill himself? or did he use a few of his daddy’s stolen billions to buy himself a new identity, a dead body, and a forensic pathologist to confirm the fake death certificate? Lets see morgue shots? Any recent pictures of him? Is kids just changed their name from madoff to Morgan. What is his new identity? Will the Madoff hunters be able to sniff out this fake out?

Meet Stephanie Madoff aka Stephanie Morgan she is Mark Madoff’s wife and Bernie Madoff’s daughter in-law. She is a mother, business woman and sadly a widow since her husband was fiound dead at his apartment where her son was also at. Keep reading to know more about her from our story Stephanie Madoff: Mark Madoff’s Wife (Photos, Video) http://sports.rightpundits.com/?p=5600

With Bernie out of the way investors can sleep well at night knowing that their money is now safe and in honest hands. But Cynics claim that the Devil rules and 99% would do what Bernie did if they thought they would get away with it. Let us pray that God watches over our investments and keeps those 99% out of Wall Street.

I don’t know the whole story, but I’m guessing that no matter how much he “gave back”, the investors would have sued for more. It must have been hell to turn in your own father, then to continue on. I think that most people assume that he was involved in, or at least knew of, the deceit by his father. It’s unfortunate that he could not hold on long enough to clear his own name and make a new name for himself.

“How selfish! The entire family is cursed and now that Son, who was left, will be cursed because of his selfish act.”

How selfish? Clearly,you have no idea the depth of pain a person suffers that leads to suicide. I urge you to work for just one day taking calls on a suicide hotline. You will see a far different reality, one that will – I hope – make you a more compassionate human.